


Here Without You

by TeamHPForever



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamHPForever/pseuds/TeamHPForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chitauri are defeated, Loki is back on Asgard with Thor, but for Clint the only thing that matters is that Coulson is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Without You

The battle’s over. The Avengers are all together as they survey the aftermath and wait for instructions by SHIELD. The Chitauri are defeated; now it’s time for the agents to take care of the rest.

Loki is in some sort of mechanical device that Thor promises he won’t be able to escape. Clint isn’t sure he believes the Asgardian, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

Clint fingers his earpiece, waiting for the familiar voice. His heart aches for it. He’s heard the reports, he knows that Coulson is dead, but somehow he can’t believe it. It’s not like any of them saw the body. There’s nothing but Fury’s word.

There’s a hint of static. Clint stops breathing. This is the part where Coulson is supposed to say, “Talk to me, Barton.”

There’s silence on the other end. Not even a whisper of someone breathing. The static disappears. Clint pulls the earpiece out and throws it off the ledge of Stark Tower. Nothing but the radio silence could convince him that Coulson is really gone for good.

Clint goes through the aftermath of the battle on auto-pilot. The Avengers disband, Thor leaving first with Loki. Bruce and Tony head out together, presumably back to Stark Tower. Steve goes off on his own.

That leaves Natasha and Clint to go back to SHIELD headquarters alone. Agent Sitwell debriefs them individually, another punch to Clint’s gut. He’s used to seeing Coulson on the other side of that desk.

Coulson always knows exactly what to say to him. Sitwell follows the usual script to the letter and Clint gives him all the right answers. All he wants to do is get out of that room that reminds him so much of Coulson. He can even see his old handler’s grainy photograph of Captain America hanging on the wall.

“You’re dismissed,” Sitwell says and Clint resists the urge to salute before he leaves. Natasha catches up with him halfway to his quarters.

“Clint…” she murmurs, resting a hand on his shoulder. He freezes, muscles tensed to keep himself still. He wants to run away, wants to find a high place and shoot at targets. He doesn’t want to think about anything but the twang of the bow and the pull of his muscles.

“I’m fine,” he replies.

Natasha lets him go. That’s what he loves most about her. She always knows when he needs to talk and when he needs to just let off steam. In exchange, Clint gives her the same respect.

He spends most of the night on the archery range. There are a couple amateurs practicing when he arrives, but they clear out almost immediately. Clint doesn’t know if it’s out of respect or fear or what, but he doesn’t care.

When his eyes refuse to stay open, he shoots with them shut. It’s only when his muscles shake so hard he can’t hold on to the bow anymore that he lets it drop.

Clint sleeps on the range, unable to convince himself that it’s worth the long walk back to his quarters. He won’t be interrupted here and he’ll shoot anyone that tries.

In his dreams he’s fighting the Chitauri again, but every time he looses an arrow at one, Coulson appears and they each strike him instead.

Natasha wakes him in the morning and doesn’t even flinch when he grabs his bow and points an arrow in her face. “Let’s get breakfast,” she says.

Clint stores his bow away in the rafters (he has a normal slot with everyone else’s equipment but he doesn’t trust anyone like he trusts himself) and follows Natasha to breakfast. She eats pancakes and watches as he picks at a piece of toast.

“You’re eating like a sparrow,” she tells him.

Clint doesn’t even crack a smile. Natasha lets it go. When they’re done, Clint returns to the range. He smells like sweat and blood but he can’t bring himself to care. He has every intention of sleeping on the range again.

Natasha doesn’t let him. She all but snatches his bow out of his hand and drags him back to his quarters. Once he’s there he takes a shower just to have something to do and curls up in bed.

After a while, the two of them fall into a routine. Natasha fetches him for breakfast and then Clint goes to the range. At the end of the day, she drags him to dinner and takes him back to his quarters to keep him from returning to his bow.

Clint has lost track of how long this has been going on when Natasha gets him out of bed with a bucket of ice water to the face. He doesn’t ask her how she got in past all of SHIELD and his security measures.

“Get up,” she snaps at him. “Coulson wouldn’t want you to spend your life in bed and on the range.” Natasha leaves without waiting for his answer.

Clint meets her for breakfast that morning. As time goes on, things get easier. He doesn’t look for Coulson in the mess hall. He doesn’t turn around in the middle of his archery sessions, expecting Coulson to be standing there watching like he once did sometimes. He’s no longer tempted to sleep on the range.

Natasha doesn’t have to throw more buckets of ice water on him. That’s a definite improvement.

His first mission is two months after Coulson’s death. It’s a simple assassination and he’s almost disappointed when everything goes smoothly. He’s able to forget a while but he comes crashing back to Earth when he hears Agent Sitwell’s voice in his ear.

“Status report, Barton.”

Clint hesitates and then rattles off his mission report. Within minutes a helicopter has arrived to bring him back to SHIELD. Debriefing is painfully boring.

Sitwell has taken over Coulson’s office. All of his old handler’s stuff is gone. Sitwell has hung a couple of oil paintings on the back wall and books line the shelves. He probably hasn’t even read most of them.

Clint hates him for it.

The days and the missions fly by. A botched recon mission in Bolivia goes south and Clint has to think on his feet to get out. If Coulson was there, he’d know exactly what to do. But it’s Sitwell on the other end of the radio and he lacks Coulson’s ability to think outside the box.

By the time Clint gets home, there’s a bullet in his thigh and his right wrist is shattered. He half-expects Coulson to be standing there when he opens his eyes in the hospital.

It’s Natasha instead. “You look like hell,” she says.

“Thanks.” He squints up at her, his voice little more than a rasp. She hands him a glass of water and he gulps it down like he’s dying of thirst.

“You’re going to be fine.” Natasha sits down at the edge of his bed. “Though the doctor says it’s going to be a couple months before your wrist is healed.”

Clint scowls down at his cast. He’s not going to be shooting for a long time. The thought makes him want to punch Sitwell right in the nose. He never would have put himself in that situation if Sitwell had done his damn job and made the proper preparations for his escape.

Coulson never would have left him high and dry like that.

“I know,” Natasha says. She stays with him for the rest of the afternoon, in almost complete silence. She tells him as much as she can about her last mission, trying to distract him from the pain of his wrist, but in the end she has to go back to her quarters and Clint is left alone.

It’s seven weeks and six days before the cast comes off.

It’s three weeks and two days before he’s allowed to touch a bow after that.

The arrow hits the ground on his first shot, three feet in front of the target. Clint hasn’t shot that badly since he first picked up the bow when he was twelve.

The second one hits the very outside edge.

It’s two months, one week, and four days before he’s allowed out on a mission. Sitwell is in his ear again but Clint’s trust—whatever he’d had of it—in him has been broken. The mission is simple: break into the house of a foreign government official, gather intel, and get out.

Clint disregards Sitwell’s warning to get out and is caught in a firefight between two bodyguards. It’s not much of a firefight—they each only manage to get off one shot before he takes them out—but he can tell from Sitwell’s furious shouting that no one at SHIELD is happy with him.

Clint can’t bring himself to care. He gets himself out and catches the helicopter just before it takes off.

Sitwell grounds him the moment he touches down at headquarters. Fury summons him to his office in the morning.

“You’re being assigned a different handler,” Fury says.

“Yes, sir.” Clint doesn’t really care who is handling him to be honest. Coulson is the one that he first talked to when SHIELD brought him in. Coulson is the one that got him through all the training and all those missions.

Coulson is the only one he trusts.

“You’re still grounded until you’re approved for mission status again.” Fury doesn’t look at all happy with him.

“Yes, sir,” Clint says without a hint of emotion in his voice. Missions used to be a distraction but now they just make him think of Coulson more. “Is Coulson dead?”

Fury jumps and squints at him through his one good eye. “Coulson died in the Battle of New York.”

“Yes, sir.” Clint just stares at him, hoping beyond hope that Fury will say something that will tell him that he’s right. That Coulson is still alive, somewhere.

“You are dismissed,” Fury tells him instead. Clint leaves and heads straight for the range. Natasha is there but she doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t either and eventually she leaves him alone.

In the end, Fury lets him go on a mission with Natasha within two weeks of his grounding. Clint is camped out on a rooftop, watching the action below in case Natasha needs back-up when his earpiece crackles with static.

Clint is tempted to drop it over the ledge but he can’t risk taking his hands off his bow. He almost drops that to the ground when a voice comes through.

“Talk to me, Barton.”

Clint’s ears are ringing. He has to be dreaming right now. There’s no way that this is real. Coulson. That’s Coulson’s voice in his ear. Coulson’s words prompting his status report.

But Coulson is dead.

“Barton?”

Coulson isn’t dead. He’s talking to him right now. That’s definitely him. Clint would recognize the sound of his name on Coulson’s tongue anywhere.

“Coulson,” Clint gasps.

“Status report, Barton,” Coulson continues, his voice all business.

Clint takes a deep breath. Then another. It calms him down enough to form the words that he needs to say. He recaps the situation and Coulson orders him to stand down. Natasha is out of danger and their mission is a success.

“Come home, Barton,” Coulson says. Clint packs up his bow in a daze and catches the helicopter. He almost expects it to be some kind of joke or Fury’s answer to his inability to work with another handler.

It’s not. When the door of the helicopter opens, Coulson is sitting on the other seat. He looks like he’s lost about ten pounds in the time since Clint has seen him last but he’s very much healthy and alive.

Clint resists the urge to throw his arms around Coulson in a hug and sits down on the opposite seat. He’s never been one for displays of affection, but it’s not every day someone comes back from the dead. He keeps his bow in his lap, running his hands over the intricate technology. “How is this possible?” Clint asks.

“I survived,” Coulson replies, a smile on his face. “I’m sorry, Clint. Fury ordered that none of you were to be told, not even after the Chitauri were defeated.”

Clint’s brain short-circuits at the sound of his first name on Coulson’s lips. It’s always been “Agent Barton” or just “Barton.” Maybe “Hawkeye” once or twice. Never just “Clint.”

It takes Clint a few minutes to realize that Coulson is no longer talking. He’s just sitting there, staring at him like he’s waiting for something. The only problem is Clint isn’t sure what it is. He can’t remember Coulson asking a question but then he zoned out so it’s possible he missed one.

“I’m sorry, sir?” Clint asks.

“I said, are you all right? I heard about Venezuela.” Coulson is still staring at him with the strangest expression on his face. Clint isn’t sure what to call it. It looks like he’s trying so hard not to smile.

Clint flexes his now-healed wrist. “I’m fine, sir.”

“I don’t know who your new handler is going to be, but don’t be so hard on them. You need to trust us.”

Clint feels like he’s been punched in the chest. He just got Coulson back and now he’s talking about leaving him to a new handler again? “I trust you, sir.”

“I’m not your handler anymore, Clint.”

It takes a few seconds for him to realize what Coulson is looking for in a response. When he figures it out, he smirks as he says, “I trust you, Phil.”

“I have my own team now and I have to be there for them. They’re all at the Hub right now or I wouldn’t even be here.” Coulson looks strangely sad as he says it, but his voice has a hint of fondness that makes jealousy rear up inside Clint.

He knows that he’s not Coulson’s only charge, but it’s still hard to be abandoned. He’s had enough of that in his life. He thought Coulson would always be the constant. “Sitwell is incompetent.”

“I know.” Coulson grimaces. “I’ll talk to Fury. Find someone that you can work with, even if I have to hand-pick them.”

Clint doesn’t know how to react to that. “Thank you.”

There isn’t time to say anything else before the two of them are touching down again. Clint hops out first and turns to help Coulson down, but he hasn’t moved.

“I’m not coming,” Coulson calls over the roar of the blades. “Don’t tell anyone about me. I had to call in a whole lot of favors from Fury before he’d even let me tell you.”

Clint nods and his heart feels like it’s been ripped into pieces as he watches Coulson take off again.

Debriefing is pure torture. He just wants to get back to his bunk and check over his arrows, but the agent—a woman whose name he can’t keep in his head—just keeps asking more questions. Finally when he’s able to escape he runs into Natasha, fresh out of her own debriefing.

If she notices anything strange about him, she doesn’t say. They eat dinner together and then, thankfully, Clint is able to retreat to the sanctity of his bunk for the night.

If he thought that not telling anyone about Coulson would be horrible, Clint finds that having the knowledge himself is worse. He thinks about Coulson every second that he’s not on a mission and most of those seconds as well. He wonders what Coulson is doing now, where he is, how his team is doing.

He wonders if Coulson thinks about him at all.

Clint keeps expecting Coulson to reappear on one of his missions, but he doesn’t. His new handler is Agent Jacobson. She’s intelligent, soft-spoken, and sharp as one of his arrows. She isn’t afraid to be unorthodox and she even turns a blind eye when he breaks a regulation or two as long as he can explain to her why in debriefing.

She’s not Coulson, but Clint can work with her.

Clint has almost given up hope of ever seeing Coulson again when his voice crackles through his earpiece again.

Clint has his arrow aimed directly at a tall man with dark hair and dark eyes. The man has a gun aimed back at him so Clint thinks he’s entirely justified. No one was supposed to be on this part of the grounds, anyway.

“Stand down,” Coulson says.

Clint does it almost without thinking. The man lowers his gun at the same time, like he heard the same instruction. Clint realizes that’s exactly what happened when Coulson adds, “He’s one of mine.”

Clint looks the man over critically. He’s layered with muscle and fights with a natural skill. Grudgingly, he has to admit that Coulson has chosen well. The two of them finish the mission under Coulson’s instructions and make their exit from separate channels.

Clint takes a train back to headquarters. He assumes the man makes it out on the jet. It looks like one of theirs, high-tech and painted black and radiating power.

Fury debriefs him personally, presumably because Coulson isn’t around to do it and it’s not really possible for him to give a real mission report without including the supposedly-dead agent.

Natasha stops by his bunk that night, just to check-in now that he’s back from his mission, and Clint can’t take it anymore. He motions her inside and closes the door before checking to make sure no one is lurking outside.

“Coulson’s alive,” he says.

Her eyes widen briefly in surprise before it disappears behind her poker face. “I knew something had happened.”

“He spoke to me on a mission.” Clint sits on the edge of his bed. “I just thought that you should know. I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

Natasha nods. “Coulson died in the Battle of New York.”

At first Clint thinks that she doesn’t understand, that she thinks he’s finally cracked under the pressure, but then he grins at her. “Right. Coulson is dead.” The words that he could never say before slip easily from his lips. “Coulson died.”

“Get to sleep,” Natasha orders and lets herself out. Clint starts laughing and once he gets going he can’t stop. He laughs until the tears stream down the sides of his face and he doesn’t know whether he’s laughing or crying anymore.

After a few months of successful missions, Fury calls Clint into his office. He almost expects to be grounded again. Maybe Fury found out that he told Natasha. Or maybe Jacobson is giving up on him just like Sitwell.

Instead, Fury says, “You’re going on a covert operation. Level seven.”

Clint doesn’t know what that means but he accepts anyway. He’s being sent as back-up in the investigation of a 0-8-4, just in case they find anything dangerous. The jet picks him on the runway and there he is.

He’s there, leaning against the shiny exterior of a red corvette. His team doesn’t seem to be anywhere around, so Clint lets a grin cross his face as he moves up into the hold.

“You needed me?” Clint asks.

“We did.” Coulson waves a hand over his shoulder for him to follow. Waiting upstairs is what Clint assumes is Coulson’s team.

There’s the dark-haired man with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Agent Ward,” Coulson says, introducing him first. Ward doesn’t look at all impressed to see him there, but Clint can’t really blame him. After all, he _was_ two seconds from shooting the agent in the face the last time they’d met.

“This is Skye,” Coulson continues. She’s a brunette standing next to Ward, shorter than him and clearly not an agent. She doesn’t have the ready stance of an experienced fighter but he can bet she’s learning. Coulson wouldn’t have anyone on his team that couldn’t defend themselves.

Skye also looks awestruck at his presence, which is new. Clint isn’t using to having anyone know who he is.

“These are Fitz and Simmons.” Fitz is a blond man, thin but strangely stern looking, and Simmons a redheaded woman, smiling awkwardly. They’re both obviously SHIELD scientists. Clint doesn’t work with them much but he sees them enough around headquarters to recognize the type.

“And Agent May is the pilot,” Coulson finishes. “This is Agent Barton.”

Fitz, Simmons, and Skye all greet him easily. Ward remains silent but that’s all right with Clint. Ward seems like the silent type and Clint can relate. Once all the introductions are done, Coulson settles in to brief them on the mission.

The investigation of the 0-8-4 goes off without a hitch. It turns out to be a piece of Asgardian tech, completely harmless. There’s a brief scare when one of the science people’s bots makes the tech glow red-hot for a moment before it settles down again.

Clint is all for sinking it to the bottom of the ocean but his opinions don’t have any weight in SHIELD unless it involves shooting something.

If Clint thinks a successful mission might get him on Coulson’s team, he’s wrong. They drop him back off in New York within a couple hours of finishing up. Coulson leads him off the runway.

Clint can’t stop himself from saying, “Stay in New York.” He doesn’t know why he says it, but he does know he’ll hate himself if he doesn’t. There’s no way Coulson can say yes—not with the way that Clint has seen his team look at him—but it’s worth a try anyway.

“You know I can’t.” Coulson seems to hesitate and then he brushes his fingertips over Clint’s wrist, the once-broken one, so light that Clint tries to convince himself later that he imagined it.

“I do.” Clint glances over Coulson’s shoulder, at where the plane is waiting. He can’t see her, but he knows Agent May is watching from the cockpit. She’s a hardened woman, thin and lithe like a cat, with a furious fighting style that reminds him of Natasha.

“There will be a right time, Clint,” Coulson says. He disappears before Clint can ask what he meant by that.

Time goes on. Working with Jacobson gets easier. She learns to pick up on his moods, anticipate his moves as much as anyone can. She’s still not Coulson but Clint can admit to himself that he likes her well enough.

Every morning he wakes to newspaper clippings and file reports slipped under his door. Coulson is never specifically mentioned by name, of course, but Clint knows they have to be about his team. If the reports are to be believed, Coulson’s team is taking SHIELD by storm.

The Avengers assemble again before Clint knows what Coulson meant about there being a right time. They’re in Stark Tower, waiting to see what Loki’s next move will be, when Jarvis announces that someone is coming up the elevator.

Tony squints around at the Avengers like he’s making sure they’re all there. “Who is it?” Tony demands.

“It’s not Loki,” Jarvis answers cryptically. Tony huffs at him and starts threatening to revamp his programming.

Clint stops listening when the elevator opens. Or maybe he goes deaf, he’s not sure. Because Coulson is standing there. He’s wearing his perfect suit and his usual smile and, for a moment, Clint wonders if the past year has been a dream.

Clint stays back, perched on top of a coffee table, while the others converge on Coulson. Natasha is the first to make a move, not even bothering to feign surprise at the agent’s return. Then Thor, who throws his arms around Coulson in a boisterous hug.

Coulson’s wide-eyed expression when Thor lets him go seems to drive Tony and Steve into movement. They approach together, each shaking his hand in turn.

Their mouths move but Clint doesn’t register a single word that any of them say. He’s too busy staring at Coulson, wondering what this means.

In the end, Coulson extricates himself from the other Avengers and makes his way across the floor, leaning against the table next to Clint. He says, “You missed the eye on your last shot.”

That breaks Clint out of his stupor. He grins back at his old handler. “Couldn’t risk blinding the thing and not taking it out,” he defends himself.

“Of course not.” Coulson sighs good-naturedly. He stays with them a few more minutes, not saying a word about how he survived or his team, and then disappears again.

“Did that just happen?” Steve asks, the first to speak once the Avengers are alone together again.

“Coulson’s alive,” Clint says, his tone indicating that it was never in question. No one asks him about it and he’s thankful for that. He doesn’t want to have to explain how he’s known for a while that Coulson’s death was a lie.

It’s nice to have Coulson’s voice back in his ear. Officially, Jacobson is still Clint’s handler, but that doesn’t stop Coulson from stepping in from time-to-time.

Clint’s heart aches every time he thinks about Coulson leaving again, so he tries to keep that to a minimum. Instead he focuses on savoring the time he has left. It’s almost like old times again, only this time he has the Avengers at his side.

The destruction of half of Seattle later and the battle is finished. Clint knows for sure that it is when Coulson says, “Report, Barton.”

Clint does, rattling off his status report using more words that strictly necessary. He doesn’t want to stop talking because he knows as soon as he does, Coulson will be gone again. There’s only so much he can say about the battle, though, and finally the words stop flowing.

“Nice work, Barton.” Coulson’s voice switches from his firm, all-business tone to a softer one that Clint has never heard before. He’s not sure how to react to it, beyond the strange shiver that runs down his spine. “I’ll be back more from now on, Clint.”

That’s the last thing he says before Clint’s earpiece goes silent and he knows that there’s no one on the other end.

Coulson turns out to be right. Clint starts to see him more around SHIELD headquarters. He still spends most of his time with his team, but at least his survival is no longer a secret.

Still, Clint’s so used to being alone on the range that a pair of eyes watching him one afternoon makes his skin crawl. He knows it’s Coulson but he also knows that it’s going to take some getting used to again.

“Natasha told me she found you sleeping on the range. That first night,” Coulson says when Clint pauses to collect his arrows.

“You were dead,” Clint replies, like that explains everything. To him it does. He leaves six of his arrows aside to be sharpened and gathers the rest into his quiver, to shoot again.

Just as he draws the bow, Coulson stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Clint feels like his entire world is shifting in that one touch.

It doesn’t feel comforting or friendly. It feels intimate, the softest brush of skin against his bare neck like Coulson is stroking his thumb just above the collar of his shirt.

Clint lets the arrow fly and watches it quiver in the center of the bull’s-eye. He lets the bow fall to his side. Coulson doesn’t move his hand.

“I’ve missed you,” Coulson admits.

“I missed you, too.” The words rasp as they come out of Clint’s mouth. He doesn’t even know if he has the words to explain how much.

Coulson is the one that brought him out of the endless hell that he’d found himself in after he escaped the circus. Coulson is the one that brought him up the ranks of SHIELD, the one who earned his trust, the only one who didn’t threaten to ground him for life when he returned from a mission to Russia with a bullet graze and a wild-eyed redhead assassin.

Coulson is the one he loves.

Clint didn’t quite realize that until now. It’s been so long since he’s felt the hot rush of warmth and familiarity and _longing_ that he can’t remember what it feels like. Not until he looks over at Coulson and experiences it all again.

The bow drops out of his hand and hits the floor, but he doesn’t check to make sure it’s okay. He’s otherwise occupied, reaching out with his now free hand for Coulson’s face.

Clint pauses for the smallest second, his lips inches from Coulson. He’s so much better at seeing people from far away, somewhere tall where he can’t be touched. Coulson is so close that he can see every tremor in Clint’s face and Clint needs to know that he’s reading this situation right.

That he’s not stepping outside of his bounds here.

Coulson bridges the last of the distance between them and presses his lips to Clint’s. Clint hasn’t kissed another man since the circus, but the comparison is lost because it was nothing like this.

That kiss was awkward and hurried and the boy tasted like cheap beer and popcorn. Coulson doesn’t really taste like anything but himself. He kisses soft and firm, waiting patiently for Clint to react instead of forging ahead without him.

Clint responds, kissing back with everything he has. A dark ball in the pit of his stomach waits for Coulson to throw him off, to yell, to throw a punch, or worse, to walk out of his life forever.

Coulson doesn’t. He just keeps kissing him.

Clint opens his mouth willingly when Coulson traces his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. As Coulson deepens the kiss, he wraps his hands around Clint’s waist and pulls him closer. Clint leans down a touch more, to bring them closer. He isn’t much taller than the agent but he still doesn’t feel like they’re close enough.

Coulson is the first to pull away, resting his head on Clint’s shoulder as he catches his breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks into the soft fabric of Clint’s shirt.

“You were dead,” Clint answers, matter-of-factly. The words are so much easier to say now with Coulson alive and in his arms. “And then, when you weren’t, you were still gone.”

Coulson lifts his head and stares into Clint’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

There isn’t anything that Clint can say that he hasn’t already. Isn’t anything, except one question that’s weighed on his mind ever since Coulson made his official return to SHIELD. “Will you ever be my handler again?”

“I think I’ll leave that to Jacobson, if you can handle that. I still have my team and…conflicts of interest.” He presses his lips to Clint’s neck briefly. “Maybe I can still handle you sometimes.”

Clint groans low in his throat and pulls Coulson closer by the shoulders. He kisses low on Coulson’s throat, resisting the urge to suck a mark onto his skin right then and there.

“On missions,” Coulson clarifies, smirking.

Clint nips him lightly then draws away slightly, straightening up so he can look Coulson in the eyes again. “Don’t leave me again.” He tries to make it sound like an order, but it comes out sounding so desperate that he almost hides his face in Coulson’s neck again.

Coulson leans in, brushing his lips over Clint’s. “Never.”


End file.
